In the dawn of Italian Romantic opera the strongest
voice was that of Bellini. Within a limited technical
resource he brought to the prevailing Rossinian idiom a
wealth of poignant melody enhanced by moments of
expressive dissonance to which even Wagner paid
tribute. His fame, of course, rests on his stage works,
but, like all Italian opera composers of his day, he
turned out a number of pieces for voice and piano that
vary from academic exercises to songs dedicated to
some noble dilettante or other. There is nothing here of
the German Lied. The poems are conventional; the
accompaniments never exploit the possibilities of the
keyboard in the manner of Schubert or Schumann.
Sometimes they suggest an orchestral reduction, as
though the composer had his eye on the theatre.
Certainly the operatic world is rarely far away.

Bellini’s so-called chamber compositions are
distributed throughout his career. La farfalletta (The
Butterfly 2) is said to have been written at the age of
twelve for a childhood friend (and sweetheart, of
course) to words by her brother as part of a puppet
theatre entertainment, she herself singing while her doll
mimed the actions of one who tries to catch a butterfly
to give to her boy-friend. It is a pleasant little ditty in the
fashionable polonaise rhythm, only the minor-key
inflection of the third line presaging the Bellini to come.

Anecdote also surrounds the two pieces dating from
the composer’s years at the Naples Conservatory. Both,
says his lifelong friend, Francesco Florimo, were
settings of poems by his pupil, Maddalena Fumaroli,
with whom he was by now corresponding secretly,
since her parents disapproved of their budding
relationship. Alas for legend! The autograph of Dolente
immagine di Fille mia (Sad Image of my Phyllis 5)
bears the date 1821, the year before Bellini and
Maddalena became acquainted, together with a
dedication to one Nicola Taur. But then the
concentrated sadness of the melody, already fully
characteristic, lends itself all too easily to romantic
associations. As for the scena ed aria, Quando inciso su
quel marmo (When inscribed on this marble 16), this is
obviously one of those essays in dramatic writing that
all Italian conservatories required of their students. In
the singer’s discovery of his own name carved on a
block by his (supposedly) faithless beloved we may
discern the plot that inspired Haydn’s curiously
experimental L’isola disabitata (The Desert Island).
Here the influence of Rossini is apparent, notably in the
crescendo of the cabaletta.

By 1829 Bellini had settled in Milan, where the
success of Il pirata at La Scala had won him
international fame. In that year the firm of Ricordi
issued a set of ‘sei ariette’, alternating minor and major
modes. No. 1, Malinconia, ninfa gentile (Melancholy,
gentle nymph 9), spins a long, continuous melody
evolved almost entirely from a single two-bar phrase. In
No. 2, Vanne, o rosa fortunata (Go, O fortunate rose
10), the opening strain recurs, punctuated by two short
episodes, to be rounded off by a coda whose line rises
by sequences to a climax, from which it falls to the final
cadence, a specifically Bellinian trait, to be found again
in No. 5, Per pietà, bell’idol mio (For pity, fair idol
mine 14) and, more strikingly, in No. 3, Bella Nice, che
d’amore (Fair Nice, who of love 11), couched in the
plain syllabic style of La straniera (The Stranger) of the
same year, where the high point is a semitonal clash
extremely bold for its time. By contrast, No. 4, Almen se
non poss’io (At least if I can not 13) nods in the
direction of bland Rossinian canto fiorito, ending with a
showy cadenza. No. 6. Ma rendi pur contento (But
make happy 15) is the simplest of cantabili, showing
Bellini’s ability to extend his final phrase in what
Milton called ‘notes with many a winding bout of linked
sweetness long drawn out’.

Four more pieces appear to date from Bellini’s
years in Milan. L’allegro marinaro 7 alternates two
contrasting movements, one boisterous, the other suave.
Il fervido desiderio (Fervent desire 4), written for the
Contessa Sofia Voina, has all the marks of an ‘album
leaf’, short and pithy, the lover’s impatience conveyed
by accompanimental fidgets. Vaga luna che inargenti
(Lovely moon that sheds silver light 6) is a typical
long-breathed cantilena in strophic form, moving
smoothly by small intervals. Most remarkable of all is
Torna, vezzosa Fillide (Return, fair Phyllis 8), which
first came to light in 1935. Although entitled Romanza
it is in fact a three-movement aria of distinctly dramatic
cut with an abundance of minor tonality and an unusual
amount of dialogue between voice and piano. An
operatic sketch, perhaps? Even, it might be thought, a
survival from Bellini’s conservatory days, but the
invention is too bold for a mere student.

Three songs in this collection belong to the
composer’s final years in Paris. La ricordanza (Memory
1), dated 1834, is a recently discovered setting of a
sonnet by Count Pepoli, librettist of
I Puritani, then in preparation at the Théâtre des
Italiens. It will be recognised as an early, extended
version of what would become Elvira’s Qui la voce sua
soave (Here his sweet voice) in the opera itself. Only
the rather casual draping of text over music makes one
suspect that the latter was thought of first.
Next year saw two ariettas: Sogno d’infanzia
(Dream of Childhood 3), a folk-like melody laid out on
a large-scale, and L’abbandono (Abandonment 12),
evidently the elaboration of a sketch intended for the
unwritten Ernani that had been dropped in favour of
La sonnambula in 1831. Bellini’s influence on Chopin,
taken for granted by Schumann, is nowadays disputed
for lack of documentary evidence, but a glance at the
harp-like introduction to L’abbandono will surely call
to mind the opening of Chopin’s first Ballade,
published the following year. Both approach the main
key from the same distant tonal area. Such a parallel can
hardly be due to pure coincidence. It is innovative
touches such as these, not to mention the curiously
Chopinesque transition to the reprise of La ricordanza,
that bring home to us how much was lost to music from
Bellini’s early demise.